Ruoran Li grew up in Shenzhen, a Chinese city bordering Hong Kong. She became acutely aware of the enormous changes economic development could bring to the social structure and life styles of the human population. Having experienced first hand the outbreak of SARS in 2003, she developed a keen interest in crisis response and public health. She became an epidemiologist, one who studies and analyzes patterns, causes and effects of health and disease conditions in populations. Her interest lies in studying the impact of social structure and policy interventions on health and behaviors. She is particularly drawn to the field of infectious disease modeling, because of its ability to predict and project evolutions of diseases and human responses in different populations. She is currently an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

My Scientific Name is a children's picture storybook developed in collaboration with female and minority scientists across many science fields. Each book is personalized using the letters of their name as a way of introducing them to many different STEM careers.